nevar forget
This is a 21st century war...
The Kyiv City administration has set up a chatbot to report saboteurs.
https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/waf...raine-101.html
Germany is sending 1000 anti tank missiles and 500 stinger missiles and cleared all other countries sales of formerly German equipment.
And sending 14 armored vehicles (weird number, no mention of type) and 10.000 tons of fuel.
EDIT:
SWIFT was one thing, freezing $650 billion is another.
EDIT2:
Russia's economy is being hit hard it seems. FINALLY.
Last edited by Joe Appleby; February 26 2022 at 10:17:06 PM.
nevar forget
This... is starting to look like a huge fuckup?? Unless he bulldozes in with the other 150,000 troops + equipment.
Australia has announced we are sending weapons to Ukraine via NATO.
SEATO reunion tour?Originally Posted by Maximillian
"Holy shit, I ask you to stop being autistic and you debate what autistic is." - spasm
Ok then Buster Von ScruggsYou seem to think that was recently and not in 2002 when I was a student.The high school was probably more confused than you are sorry thinking they where talking to a German high school teacher but got a tex-mex teutonic cultural fusion confusion in the classroom insteadSorry that I decided to spend a some time at a high school in Georgia.*Attenbourough voice on*
Here we see the wild German "distance himself" by imitating the call of Americanus Texican Simplitonicious. A remarkable feat.
*/Attenbourough voice off*
A Russian supplied weapon was used to kill 36 Australians so if Australian supplied weapons are used to kill Russian soldiers I view that as payback.SEATO reunion tour?
Kremlin’s propaganda barrage enforces narrative of ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine
Spin-doctors and officials have struggled to handle the cognitive dissonance required to frame the war in Putin’s terms
https://www.ft.com/content/73f87533-...e-89ce0a9265bd
As Vladimir Putin launched his military assault on Ukraine, the country’s media censor issued a series of stark warnings. Any outlet that cited sources other than the Kremlin or its armed forces could be banned, even for using the words “attack, invasion, or declaration of war” to describe it. “We stress that it is Russian official information sources who have accurate and up-to-date information,” the censor Roskomnadzor said.
Such fierce enforcement of the official narrative for the “special military operation” that Russia’s military began in Ukraine on Thursday is part of a huge propaganda barrage accompanying the invasion. “It’s like a movie. The super commandos are conducting a special military operation and everything is super,” said Tikhon Dzyadko, editor of TV Rain, one of 10 media outlets to be threatened with a ban. “This is all done to make sure that society doesn’t know there’s a real, bloody war going on, so they’re trying to hide information from them as much as possible.” The campaign builds on a well-oiled machine that has shaped Russians’ perceptions to deliver sound support for previous conflicts in eastern Ukraine and Syria, as well as a brutal crackdown on dissent at home and in neighbouring Belarus.
This time, however, the picture being painted by the Kremlin is so at odds with the reports from Ukraine itself that even top officials and spin-doctors have struggled to handle the cognitive dissonance required. Putin has framed the war as an operation to liberate Russian speakers in the separatist-controlled Donbas border region — leading news anchors to largely avoid so much as mentioning the fierce battles going on across the rest of Ukraine. As Ukrainians across the country shelter underground from Russian air strikes, news channels have run footage of peaceful days in Kyiv and repeated the military’s denials that it is launching strikes on populated areas, or even fighting there at all. “The Ukrainian authorities ... are in fact waging war with their own population in cities where there are no Russian troops, first and foremost in Kyiv,” said Artyom Sheinin, host of a political talk show on state TV.
The efforts not to mention the war, or even call it one, have left Russian media outgunned by a huge wave of posts by Ukrainians on social networks that they have struggled to counter. When Russia captured the city of Melitopol on Saturday, it claimed locals had put up no resistance and the elderly had welcomed them by waving red flags. That account was immediately tested by a video on social media showing a man angrily berating troops to their face.
The reality of the conflict even appears to have surprised some of the invading forces themselves. In videos posted by Ukrainians, men said to be Russian soldiers are seen admitting they did not know where they had been sent, with some stuck on the roadside after their vehicles ran out of fuel. “They live in Putin’s cartoons. They really believe that the population will greet them here and that the military will surrender,” said Kostyantyn Batozsky, a Ukrainian political analyst. “It’s in the worst Soviet tradition of denying reality: they denied Chernobyl, and exactly the same thing is happening.”
Even some of Putin’s most ardent supporters appear concerned that Russia is struggling to wrest control of the narrative. “There’s not nearly enough official information,” Alexander Gamov, a veteran reporter for a pro-Putin tabloid, complained to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on a Saturday call with reporters. “It’s just lots of half-baked rumours in the information space, and the official narrative is just drowning. Media are forced to fill that vacuum with Telegram channels and so on,” he said.
Russia began to change tactics on Saturday, after Ukraine claimed it had withstood a fierce night-time assault on Kyiv and its president Volodymyr Zelensky posted social media videos showing himself and top aides still in the capital — in contrast to Putin’s self-imposed seclusion. State TV abandoned some of its usual weekend programming for special episodes of political talk shows repeating the government line. On Sheynin’s talk show, analyst Kira Sazonova said Russia’s military had “found themselves in a difficult situation precisely because they have the best intentions ... to place humanitarianism above military objectives.”
Russia’s struggle to keep control of the war’s story, however, may not necessarily have consequences for Putin’s approval ratings. State television is the primary source of news for four out of five Russians, while the country has begun limiting access to Facebook and Twitter since the invasion began. In the run-up to the conflict, when Russia repeatedly denied it would invade and mocked western warnings that later turned out to be accurate, the Kremlin’s messaging seemed to have worked. Sixty per cent of Russians believed the west was the cause of the tensions, 16 per cent blamed Ukraine and only three per cent thought Russia was responsible, according to a poll published on the day of the invasion by the independent Levada Center.
Yet the longer the war goes on, the more Russians’ perception of it may change, said Nikolai Petrov, a senior research fellow at Chatham House. “All alternative voices have been suppressed, any possibility of organising protests has been destroyed, but that doesn’t mean that the Kremlin can do whatever it wants for as long as it wants,” Petrov said. “Information about what happens in Ukraine gets passed along from person to person — you can’t shut it off. That’s why they’re counting on it being relatively quick and bloodless in Russians’ eyes,” he added. “But it might turn out totally differently.”
Western leaders to sanction Russia central bank and cut some lenders from Swift
Pledges are most severe yet against Vladimir Putin as troops push into Ukraines second-largest city
https://www.ft.com/content/073a37d5-...c-a4682ef1aa88
[Skipping the first few lines on SWIFT etc]
The Biden administration official said Putin had turned Russia into a global economic and financial pariah. What we are committing to do here is to disarm the central bank, the official said, adding that the action would affect all of the institutions roughly $630bn in foreign reserves. Without being able to buy the rouble from western financial institutions ... Putins central bank will lose the ability to offset the impact of our sanctions, he said. The rouble will fall even further, inflation*will spike and the central*bank will be left defenceless.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said she would propose to EU leaders that they should paralyse the assets of Russias central bank in order to freeze its transactions and make it impossible for it to liquidate its assets. Josh Lipsky, director of the Atlantic Councils Geoeconomics Center who previously worked at the IMF, said before the announcement that hitting the central bank would be an extraordinarily significant and damaging move to Russias economy.
A G20 central bank has never been sanctioned before. This is not Iran. This is not Venezuela, said Lipsky. Edward Fishman, a former US official now at the Center for a New American Security, said it could present a devastating blow to the Russian economy that would eclipse the significance of a ban on Swift. The US has only previously sanctioned the central banks of Iran, Venezuela and North Korea.
A US official declined to say if Washington would sanction the central bank by adding it to the Treasurys Specially Designated Nationals list, which Fishman described as the single most impactful sanction that you could apply to Russia, and you could do it with a stroke of the pen. It would render a sizeable chunk of their foreign exchange reserves unusable overnight, Fishman said. The move would ban US entities from dealing with the central bank, which would mean that everyone would be skittish about moving any assets on behalf of the Russian central bank, he said.
[more SWIFT stuff]
A run on the banks could be likely then
Look, the wages you withheld from the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves for slaughter.
German defense spending about to go brrr.
Edit:
https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-rever...ion/a-60932652
Additional 100 billion euros for 2022 defense budget, promise to actually go for the 2% target.
Not in the article, but was mentioned in the speech: possibly buying F-35 to make sure there's a platform for nuclear sharing once our Tornados have been retired.
So after CDU made the wet dreams of the Greens a reality with retiring nuclear power, now SPD and Greens (with the FDP being along for the ride) make CDU military wet dreams a reality. Seriously, what even is this world.
Another edit: Lindner (FDP, Finance Minister): "renewable energy is freedom energy". This timeline keeps getting weirder and weirder.
So, all in all: welcome back to the 1980s.
Another edit: wow, Habeck (Vice chancellor, Greens) rhetorically on fire. Rape of Ukraine, vigilance is the price of freedom etc...
Last edited by Takeshi Nuwen; February 27 2022 at 11:11:13 AM.
Revolut froze my card the first time around, but you can unblock it via the app and the second time it'll go through. I use it as a sort of a buffer for internet payments. Setting up an account is relatively painless (though they do require you scan in your ID).
All expressed opinions match those of my employers, hail satan
Revolut is russian...Just saying...Revolut froze my card the first time around, but you can unblock it via the app and the second time it'll go through. I use it as a sort of a buffer for internet payments. Setting up an account is relatively painless (though they do require you scan in your ID).
haha jesus christ lads.Revolut is russian...Just saying...Revolut froze my card the first time around, but you can unblock it via the app and the second time it'll go through. I use it as a sort of a buffer for internet payments. Setting up an account is relatively painless (though they do require you scan in your ID).
If we are going back to the '80es can we have a decent punk and heavy metal revival? I like synth as well but its already very much alive.
I'm guessing that a lot of still active or retired but still alive politicians who were active during Reagan years are doing a massive "I told you so" to their junior colleagues. They just could not envision that Russia would sacrifice direct economic growth for what (whether justifiably or not) Russia considers to be its strategic imperative. Even on the personal selfish scale of oligarchs keeping their yachts and houses in London and Monaco the current action makes no sense.
Thanks. Eventually it seemed to work. I actually donated my money twice, but at least that's better then not at all.Revolut froze my card the first time around, but you can unblock it via the app and the second time it'll go through. I use it as a sort of a buffer for internet payments. Setting up an account is relatively painless (though they do require you scan in your ID).
Are you sure?Revolut is russian...Just saying...
@rilla: heh, yeah, same - after I flagged the transaction as OK, it got charged the next day (my first attempt was to set up periodic contributions).
All expressed opinions match those of my employers, hail satan
What the current situation reminds me of:
It's British, lol. Just because it's been founded by russian (actually ukrainian) people it doesn't mean it is russian as in aligned to the state of Russia. And one of the most important things we should take home from this whole shit show is that regular people in Russia are people like you and me who want to leave in peace. Don't project one madman's actions upon a whole people.Revolut is russian...Just saying...Revolut froze my card the first time around, but you can unblock it via the app and the second time it'll go through. I use it as a sort of a buffer for internet payments. Setting up an account is relatively painless (though they do require you scan in your ID).
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks